


Lonely Egg

by jmtorres



Category: Puss in Boots (2011)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres





	Lonely Egg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MsBattyBat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBattyBat/gifts).



Puss as a kitten hadn't been very discriminating about who he'd rubbed himself all over, though Humpty had always been a favorite. And Imelda's shoes. And this one throw pillow with tassels. He hadn't been much for people beyond Humpty (if you could count Humpty as a person, which he was never sure he could) and Imelda, but Imelda was mama and therefore Puss's desire to curl up on her bosom was--not something to be jealous about, Humpty always told himself.

Imelda was mama for Puss, provider of milk and snuggles, and Humpty was brother, as soon as Puss started bothering with words. Even though Imelda raised them both, Puss was far more likely to call Imelda mama than Humpty was--that was a mammal thing. Humpty wasn't a mammal. He wasn't even an animal really, just something some animals used to incubate their young, but whatever mysterious beast had laid him had left him behind and instead of hatching, he'd... happened. Bird egg, he'd always assumed he was, though once Puss had said, lazy, "Or dragon, you look big enough to be a dragon egg, no?" which had been exciting and scary, because on the one hand, _dragon_ , but on the other hand, Humpty didn't like the idea of having something inside of him that might break out to live at his expense.

It was a spell, probably, that had turned him from a vessel to a being in his own right, like the one for turning puppets into boys or making trees walk. Humpty knew Imelda thought the witch who lived across the bridge, outside San Ricardo, who only came to town on market days to sell potions and charmed sachets, had done it, or at least, might undo it, because she never let Humpty near her, lest she mutter some hex and Humpty collapse into nothing but yolk and white. Part of why Humpty wanted so desperately to leave San Ricardo and seek his fortune was someone out there, whether it was the witch or someone else, knew what he was and where he came from and why he existed. Sometimes the risk of being unmade seemed worth the chance to grasp at knowledge. Not that Puss understood that--Puss might not know where he came from, who his parents were, but talking cats weren't so rare a breed. He wasn't a lone freak like Humpty.

When they were teenagers--before the mess with Little Boy Blue's gang and the bank robbery, before even the time with the bull and the commandante's mother--Puss started tom-catting around. If you had asked Puss about it, he probably wouldn't have recalled _that_ as a significant turn in his relationship with Humpty, wouldn't have recalled it as anything to do with Humpty, but in Humpty's mind, it was always the first betrayal.

It was hard for Humpty to put a finger on why he bothered him so much to see Puss chasing after other pretty kitties, and not just because his reach was pretty lousy. It wasn't even as if Puss was successful all that often as a teenager. There was a sexy mama cat down the street, with the fluffy tail and always a litter of kittens, who he liked to go yowl at, who always him away because he was too young to beat out any of the other toms who were her beaus. Once he'd even run afoul of one of those toms, because he wouldn't take off when the cougar told him to, and he'd come slinking back home with claw marks on his face to show for it. Humpty almost managed something like sympathy as he dabbed the scratches with a wet cloth, and he was rewarded with Puss cleaning him in turn, long scratchy licks over the curve of his shell.

"Hey, now," Humpty said nervously when Puss knocked him over and rolled him to the side to lick as he pleased.

Puss nudged up to his face. "Close your eyes," he purred. He licked all over that weird, malleable part of Humpty's shell, and Humpty squirmed and wrinkled his nose and pressed his lips closed as well as his eyelids.

When Puss had moved on, half-sitting on Humpty to reach the gentle point of his crown, Humpty asked, hesitant and hopeful, muffled by the pale fluff of Puss's belly, "Is this--sex?"

Puss rolled off him, laughing. "You need to find some nice chick," he said.

"Do I look like a chicken's egg to you?" Humpty grumbled, flopping onto his back. He could just barely touch the floor with his fingertips to balance himself.

"Or a rooster," Puss suggested, snickering. "You like the cock?"

Humpty groaned. He didn't say anything else because he didn't know what to say to that, and Puss for once didn't push. Puss curled up around him like a big, fuzzy incubator, snuggling up like he hadn't since he was a kitten.

Then the next day, as if nothing had happened, or as if it didn't mean anything that it had, Puss was off down an alley after tabby, pouncing mousers and skinny, hopeful, rumble-purring strays and the pampered, fluffy housecats hanging out of windows watching all his antics. Imelda caught him by his scruff that time and dragged him home, saying she was too old to look after another whole litter who were as big of troublemakers as Puss.

So. Humpty was jealous for a lot of reasons. He was jealous because Puss thought of him as a brother or a kitten's chewtoy and not anything more. He was jealous because Puss knew what he wanted and how to get it, even if he wasn't always successful, whereas Humpty couldn't even figure out what to ask. He was jealous because Puss had other kitties but there were no other eggs like Humpty. He was jealous because he had all these feelings boiling up to frustration and no outlet he could determine, because he was an _egg_ , he had arms and legs and a face and that much was a miracle, but he wasn't _equipped_ any further and he didn't see how he would ever be able to act out his desires, even if he could find someone who wanted him as much as he wanted--well, Puss.

Mostly, Humpty was jealous because he felt like he'd been left behind.

So on the day when Puss leaped off the roof to stop a bull while Humpty went nowhere because he couldn't jump without risking getting cracked, it jabbed at a place in Humpty's heart that was already sore, that feeling of being left behind. And later, when the wagon overturned on the bridge and the commandante's men were after them and Puss leaped again, into the river below, it felt not like a first betrayal but betrayal again, and again. Because Puss had leaped over an edge where Humpty couldn't follow long before, and he'd never come to terms with it.

A great many things happened after that; you have probably heard this story, as Puss tells it, that Humpty came back from out of nowhere and lured him fulfilling their childhood quest for the golden eggs and betrayed him, utterly, and then managed to find redemption in self-sacrifice, saving Puss and the little gosling and San Ricardo. Puss is more forgiving than Humpty, for when Humpty left Puss behind on the bridge then, Puss felt not only selfish sorrow but also great belief in the soul of his dearest friend. When the mama goose carried brushed the shards of Humpty's shell away and carried off his golden interior, Puss did not feel left behind, he felt... hope.

That is not to say he was not very surprised when, some months later a certain gosling came out of the clouds and landed on him with an undignified honk. At first he thought it was the gosling they had kidnapped, and immediately started worrying about how to get it back to its very scary mother, but the gosling said, "It's me! Puss, it's me, I _hatched_ , isn't that crazy?"

"Humpty?" Puss said, shocked. "Are you all right?" He started patting Humpty down, as if he could feel for metaphysical damage. "Are you still--you?"

"I'm okay," said Humpty. "I don't have hands, which is kind of annoying," he added, flapping his wings, partly to let Puss check underneath them. "It's hard to do some of my experiments this way. But hey, I can fly without having to invent anything now. And yeah, I'm still, um, pretty much me. I mean, when you shed, you don't feel like you've lost your identity because there's all that fur gone, right? Same thing, it turned out this was me on the inside all along."

"Humpty, when I shed, I do not also _change shape_ ," Puss said. He could not resist hugging Humpty delightedly around his new neck. "How did this happen?"

"Magic?" said Humpty, because hadn't that always been the answer? "I'm still not totally clear on _why_ , but my--my mother is pretty sure it was Jack, somehow, you know, he'd been up to the giant's castle before, and hey, wanna come on a quest with me to find out?"

"A quest?" Puss asked. "Not everything has to be a quest, you know. We could just go ask him. He is out of jail now, and we might have better luck if we are polite."

"Okay, but--" Humpty said, nervously, "you'll come with me, right? You won't make me do it alone?"

"No, I will come with you, I am as curious as you are," Puss assured him.

"Because I don't want to be alone," Humpty said: this was the important part he'd never managed to say, and he'd lost Puss so many times, sometimes it had even been his _own fault_ , so he had to say it now. "I want you to come with me. Or I'll go with you. Wherever. Even after we find out why I was a talking egg for so long and why I had to get broken for the curse to break, even after we don't have a quest or--not a quest, a polite question to seek out the answer to anymore, whatever--I still want to--Puss, I love you," Humpty said, anxious and fervent.

"You are a very silly goose," Puss said, but he did not seem to be jumping away in horror.

"I am a _gander_ , thank you," said Humpty, his feathers ruffled.

"Then you are a very silly gander," Puss agreed. "And if you can also manage to be a good egg, then I don't see why we should ever be parted again."

And that is almost all of the story, except for the part some days later when Humpty, with Puss's help, finally managed to work out sex, and Puss, who had never been a bird-chaser before, was shall we say, bewildered by what he found under Humpty's tail feathers. It seemed disproportionately long, and oddly corkscrewy.

"What is _that_?" Puss yelped as it burst forth.

"Goose dick," Humpty said smugly.

It seemed only just that after so many years of frustration, he should be gifted so handsomely.

And after all, he had Puss to share it with, which was all he'd ever wanted.


End file.
